League of Legends 'Heartsteel META' will finally be addressed with nerf via v12.23 update

When talking about the MOBA genre in video games, League of Legends is one of the first names over the table. The game has remained fresh through the years with incredible popularity among the public.

With so many years behind it, League of Legends (also known as LoL) has had multiple METAs. However, it seems that one of the current METAs is proving annoying for several players.

The League of Legends META in question is ‘Heartsteel’, but luckily the devs are already working on a nerf to balance it out.

For the unaware, ‘META’ in video games is a term that refers to the most effective strategies according to the characteristics of each character, item, weapon, and so on.

In competitive online games, the META changes over time. This is because developers often make constant rebalancing adjustments to achieve a more balanced experience.

That said, the current League of Legends META is based on the use of the Heartsteel item. The item in question especially benefits ‘Tank’ players and can deal massive amounts of damage.

The main features that make Heartsteel so useful and powerful are the following:

However, multiple players feel that the advantages of the item are exaggerated. The problem is especially noticeable when Tank characters use it, boosting their damage even more thanks to the passive ability.

The combination of high damage plus health recovery causes several players to consider Heartsteel a ‘broken’ or overpowered item.

Heartsteel hydra bork does an insane amount of damage. How a Yi that far behind 1v2s lulu and mf though is beside me. My guess is OP is low bronze and just stood there and AA’d.
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I’ve been complaining about Yi + Heartsteel since that broken item came out. The other day someone made a complaint post about Yi and it had more positive reception. Seems the challenger players of reddit, which is probably almost everyone here, are finally catching up lol.
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Fortunately, the complaints from the players finally reached the ears of the Riot Games team. The first step they will take is to reduce the amount of health recovered when using the item in ‘ARAM’ game mode.

The company will be monitoring the situation to see if further related adjustments (modifying the damage dealt, extending the nerf to other game modes, etc) are necessary in the future.

If we observe negative meta effects as a result of Heartsteel or Tank meta, then we’re going to react, but will let it play out a bit for now to stabilize. Tanks getting buffs have dropped 2-3% off the patch. Buffs to them + Hydra nerf will hopefully put them in a good spot
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For now, the damage dealt by the Heartsteel (one of the main complaints) will stay the same. We’ll have to wait and see if the nerf to health recovery helps balance things out.

The nerf will arrive in the v12.23 update, but there is still no ETA for its rollout. We will update this story as events unfold.

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